1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to a surgical stapling device for applying surgical staples to body tissue. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a surgical stapling device for performing circular anastomosis of hollow tissue organs.
2. Background to Related Art
Anastomosis is the surgical joining of separate hollow organ sections so that the sections intercommunicate with each other. Typically, the anastomosis procedure follows surgery in which a diseased or defective section of hollow tissue is removed and the remaining end sections are to be joined. Depending on the desired anastomosis procedure, the end sections may be joined by either circular, end-to-side or side-to-side organ reconstruction methods.
In a circular anastomosis procedure, the two ends of the organ sections are joined by means of a stapling instrument which drives a circular array of staples through the end sections of each organ section and simultaneously cores any overlapping tissue to free the tubular passage. Examples of instruments for performing circular anastomosis of hollow organs are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,053,390, 5,588,579, 5,119,983, 5,005,749, 4,646,745, 4,576,167, and 4,473,077. Typically, these instruments include an elongated shaft having a handle portion at a proximal end to actuate the instrument and a staple holding component disposed at a distal end. An anvil assembly including an anvil rod with attached anvil head is mounted to the distal end. Opposed end portion of the organs to be stapled are clamped between the anvil head and the staple holding component. The clamped tissue is stapled by driving one or more staples from the staple holding component so that the ends of the staples pass through the tissue and are deformed by the anvil head.
Generally, during an anastomosis procedure, the anvil assembly is separated from the stapling device and positioned within the patient in one of the tissue sections and the stapling device is positioned within the other of the tissue sections. Thereafter, the anvil assembly and the stapling device are reattached to clamp the tissue sections therebetween. Typically, placement requires the use of a detachable trocar for one or both of the anvil assembly and stapling instrument. Because of limitations on visibility and accessibility to the surgical site, it may be difficult and time consuming for a surgeon to attach and detach a trocar to the anvil assembly and/or the stapling device. Moreover, it may be difficult to determine whether the anvil assembly has been properly reattached to the stapling device.